Most people have a hard time finding good, real friends. But they're found, they are taken for granted. It's only when you don't have a friend, or as in the Hilary's case, a particular kind of friend, that you even start to think about it.
For most part, friends, or their lack thereof, had been a complete non-issue for Hilary. While in school, a thirteen year old girl, class president with perfect grades, always ready to help, had no problem in making friends. And then there was Tyson. Just the fact that you knew him (and more importantly, that he knew you – after the World Championships so many people knew him), meant a free ticket to friendship. Especially is you regularly got irritated with him and ran around after him to blading matched in the rain, with brooms; and eventually got kidnapped by a couple of weirdos, alongside a tiny, timid, bespectacled boy, and had to get rescued. Well then, you were officially a 'friend', even though he might refer to you as 'nobody'. So it was no big accomplishment, being friends with Tyson.
In fact, the noteworthy friendship here was the one with the tiny, timid, bespectacled boy who took a comparatively longer time making friends, owing to the fact that he was so nervous of everyone and everything, even if he was very friendly. Except his beloved computer with the bit beast trapped inside it. It may be said that Kenny's first friend, besides Tyson, might have been his talking computer and bit beast Dizzy.
Moving on.
Hilary technically met Kai before Rey and Max. But Kai was, well… Kai. This friendship took a much longer time to foster, owing to the fact that he treated her like wasn't even there the first time they met. Kenny's reassurance that Kai treated everybody and 'especially them like that', didn't stop her from holding him in complete suspicion. It was only until much later, when he made the rest of the gang listen to her advice that she began to trust him. A lot.
Ray was more like a brother than anything else, an older brother, calm and reassuring. Max was the perfect best friend, always cheerful and ready to rub off his happiness on everyone else as well. The one with the weird mustard fixation.
Anyway; these five boys meant that Hilary was an unusually lucky person in terms of friend collections. And she had never felt any inadequacies in that regard… until one day she saw a couple of girls gossiping and giggling, and suddenly she felt all alone.
I have no idea where this came from, I wrote it up at like 2 o clock in the morning, because I couldn't sleep. I literally sat staring at the page and my hand started moving on its own. No kidding. But I have a fairly good idea about where its going now. Anyway... please review!